


structure

by professortennant



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s04e05 Divide and Conquer, F/M, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professortennant/pseuds/professortennant
Summary: Jack had learned as a commanding officer that it was important to understand your subordinates—not just their strengths, but their weaknesses and how to compensate for them. Managing the team and redirecting them when they get off course was essential to team unity and survival.It's why he knows what Sam needs: him.





	structure

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's been about 3 months since I last wrote an SG1 fic. I apologize now for any rustiness of this fic. I'm getting back into the swing of things. There will be 2 more updates this weekend, so stay tuned. I will also be posting a few little mini-things on Tumblr to keep the writing going. Anyways, thank you so much for everyone who has been asking if I'll write anything else. It has been immensely motivating to get back to writing. Hope you enjoy!

Jack had learned as a commanding officer that it was important to understand your subordinates—not just their strengths, but their weaknesses and how to compensate for them. 

Managing the team and redirecting them when they get off course was essential to team unity and survival. 

 

It’s why he knows Daniel needs the occasional ruffle of his hair and a continuous supply of piping hot coffee. It’s why he knows Teal’c sometimes needs someone to sit with him while he slips into kelno’reem, needs a gentle reminder that he still has a brother. 

 

The boys were easy to figure out—telegraphing their desires as easily as if they were shouting it at him. Jack was good with people like that. 

 

It’s the same reason he knows exactly what Sam needs, too. She’s a damned good second-in-command: self-directed and self-sufficient, smart as a whip, and quick to obey orders. Maybe likes to obey a little _too_ much. 

 

It was evident to him in the way she had clung to regulations and rules and the strict rigor of the Air Force; the way she snapped to attention and threw sharp, tight salutes at her superior officers; and the way she turned those wide eyes of hers onto him and waited for his orders. 

 

Not that she wasn’t a spitfire when she needed to be. She was just as likely to jut her chin and tell him exactly what she thought, if need be. But when the cards were down, it was his orders—his _commands_ —she followed. 

 

So Daniel needed coffee and Teal’c needed a meditation buddy, but Sam? Sam needed _him._

 

He finds the opportunity to put this information to use months later. The brass have put the pressure on her to find a way to get the Stargate operating on a smaller power supply (“It’s costing the US taxpayers too damn much, George!”). It had been days and weeks of glimpses of blonde hair as Sam hurried from the mess hall back to her lab, muttering under her breath, eyes distant and far away, and smears of pen ink on her cheek. 

 

She was running herself into the ground. 

 

It was late when he slipped into her lab, the area dark and quiet save for the rhythmic tapping of a pencil on paper and a bright lamp illuminating Carter’s desk. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and a smattering of paper coffee cups surrounding her.

 

“Carter,” he called out softly, careful not to startle her. Her head jerked up and he saw the way her body tensed as if readying herself to stand at attention. He waved her down and held back a sigh at the almost crestfallen expression on her face.

 

“You’ve been down here a while. Maybe it’s time you go out, get some fresh air, smell the flowers, take the road less traveled—you know, all those clichés.”

 

She ducked her head to hide a smile and he leaned forward, resting his forearms on her work table. The paper in front of her had as many half-formed doodles as it did equations—but it all looked like squiggles to him. 

 

“You’ve been at it a long time, Carter. Go home, get some rest, start back again in a few hours.”

 

The argument from her was sharp and immediate, the protest already on the tip of her tongue before he could finish his sentence. “What? Sir, no, I _almost_ have it. It’s like it’s right in front of me but I can’t see it. God,“ she groans, tossing her pencil down on the table and running her hands through her hair. “I just can’t see it. I can’t—“

 

There was a hysteric tinge to her voice—a combination of frustration and exhaustion—that he wasn’t sure he had heard from her before. It was a lot of pressure that the Air Force had pushed onto a young Major’s shoulders and he figured even Sam had a breaking point. 

 

But he’s a good commanding officer and he knows what she needs.

 

He reached out and cupped the back of her neck, squeezing tightly. She froze beneath his touch and for a half second, he thought he had made a mistake and read her all wrong. Her skin was dry and warm beneath his palm and he could feel her pulse thundering against his touch. 

 

And then she almost sighed with relief and sat back in her chair, pushing her neck into his cupped palm. He squeezed tighter, part comfort and part control. 

 

“Carter,” he said, voice low and controlled. “Go home. Now.” He punctuated the order with another tight squeeze of his hand against her neck. 

 

She turned those blue eyes of hers onto him and he swallowed hard at the open, naked trust and longing he saw there. It had been a long time since he had a woman look at him like this. Her eyes were lidded and a little hazy, pupils blown wide with want. He shouldn’t, but he let his eyes flick down to her mouth where he saw her pink lips parted.

 

Sam’s eyes met his and she swallowed hard, the movement perceptible beneath his thumb against the side of her neck. He considered what it would be like to lean down and nip at the skin of her neck, to growl orders out against her mouth, to feel her gasping and clutching at him. 

 

It was exactly those thoughts—the thoughts they promised each other would stay locked up in a room somewhere—that reminded him why he should let her go. 

 

He released his grip on her neck and took a step back, ignoring the way Sam’s eyes followed his movements. They were dangerously close to crossing every line they had worked so hard to draw. 

 

“I don’t want to see you in this mountain for at least 24 hours, Carter.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

They both ignored the breathy quality of her response and the way it sounded more in place in a bedroom than the SGC. He rapped his knuckles against the surface of her work table, hoping to dissipate the thick tension that filled the room. 

 

“Right, well.” He floundered for something to say that didn’t end with him suggesting she slip into the cab of his truck and he take them both home to fuck whatever this was out of their systems. 

 

And, finding that he couldn’t get his mind to get off that particular track and didn’t want to tempt fate, simply turned on his heels and left. It was for their own good. 

 

He spent the entire drive home thinking about the way Sam reacted to his touch—her quickened breath as he tightened his hand on the back of her neck, her parted lips, her soft, unfocused gaze as she pushed against his hand. 

 

And if he palmed himself at a red light for a little relief, that was between him and the Colorado Springs traffic security cameras. 

 

___________________

 

He should have expected the knock on his door. For all of his grumblings about clichés, this was one he hoped would come to pass. There was no ignoring the interaction in her lab. There was no stuffing either of their reactions back into some room. 

 

So with a beer in hand and bare feet, he opened his front door to find Samantha Carter on his front porch, twisting and ringing her hands together nervously. At the sight of him, her hands dropped to her sides and she straightened her posture. 

 

“Sir,” she greeted. He took a swig of his beer and tried not to feel too much of a thrill that the sight of him caused her to come to attention. It felt like now that he knew this about her—now the he understood this part of her that made her tick—all of their interactions would be tinged with _something_ , some subtext. 

 

“Carter,” he acknowledged, stepping aside and inviting her in. She came in without a word, stopping in his entryway and not daring to go any further. He hid a smile into another swig of beer as he took in the sight of her looking at this home like an unfamiliar planet.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“I wanted to explain about earlier—in my lab, I mean.” 

 

“Carter, you don’t have to—“

 

“I don’t make good decisions,” she said, interrupting his protests. He raised an eyebrow at that. He supposed this was a day for blurring all kinds of lines. Despite the attraction between them and the feelings that had grown, even when they shouldn’t have, he and Carter didn’t do _this_ very often, didn’t talk about feelings. They weren’t allowed to do so. 

 

“Is this the kind of conversation you want to have by my front door? Do you need a beer?”

 

She huffed a nervous laugh out and shook her head, hands resuming their ringing. “I think I just need to get this out and then I’ll go, sir.” 

 

He nodded slowly and drained the last dregs of his lukewarm beer and put the bottle down on the hallway table and leaned against it. “So, you were saying you don’t make good decisions? Which, I gotta say, Carter, I have a hard time believing.”

 

She smiled at him indulgently. “That’s not what I mean.”

 

“Then what do you mean?”

 

At this, Carter’s fidgeting increased tenfold and she shifted her weight from foot to foot. He rolled his eyes and snapped, “Carter, stop that.”

 

She froze, hands falling to her side and her fidgeting ceasing. He raised an eyebrow at her and she flushed. 

 

“That’s what I mean,” she said softly, embarrassed. “Military is easy for me—follow orders, do what I’m told. I like the structure of it.” 

 

Jack nodded, understanding what she meant. The military had held a similar appeal for him as an eighteen-year-old with an uncertain future and a streak of wild within him. 

 

“But,” Carter continued. “I don’t make such good decisions in my personal life. Well, you saw Jonas, sir. I was going to _marry_ him. And, and you know about my relationship with my father. I don’t—I don’t do so great navigating relationships outside of the military.”

 

Jack felt like he was seeing layers of her peeling back, exposing herself to him. He started to see a more complete picture of what made her _her._ He held her eyes and waited for her to continue, to explain. 

 

“So I don’t trust myself, sir. And I _like_ following orders.” Her eyes dropped to the ground before lifting back up to meet his gaze, bright blue eyes peering out at him from beneath thick lashed. “I like following _your_ orders.”

 

His breath caught in his throat, the combination of her words and the way she was looking at him hitting him in the chest. “Sam,” he started slowly, voice low. They were treading dangerous waters. He pushed himself off of the table he was leaning on and closed the distance between them.

 

She sucked in a breath and hurried to continue the last of her thought. “I think you’re waiting for me to decide to move our relationship in a new direction. And I understand why—you’re my superior officer. But I don’t know if I can be the one to take the first step. I don’t trust myself to—“

 

And then because today was the day for clichés and crossing lines, Jack kissed her. His hand cupped the back of her neck and hauled her to him, his lips covering hers and swallowing the last of her words. She didn’t hesitate, just melted into his touch. Her mouth opened beneath his and her tongue flicked out to lick against his tongue and teeth, drawing a low, rumbling moan from his chest. 

 

Her fingers curled into the fabric of his t-shirt and she stepped closer, pressing herself against him. Jack nipped at her bottom lip and curled his fingers around her neck, mimicking his touch from earlier that day. She gasped into the kiss and groaned as his fingers pressed into the sensitive skin of her neck. 

 

Sam gave up control of the kiss entirely to him, letting him lead each press of lips, each swipe of their tongues. He tilted her head beneath his touch, demanding access to more of her which she gave freely. 

 

The kiss was quickly spiraling out of control and he was one more swipe of her tongue into his mouth away from walking her back and pressing her against the wall and hitching her thigh up over his hip and—

 

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers, giving them both time to catch their breath. Jack felt Sam’s grip on his shirt tighten and relax and he pulled back, pressing a reverent kiss to her forehead. 

 

“Sam,” he said, hand sliding up to cup her cheek and thumb rubbing over the smooth skin there. “You may not trust you, but _I_ trust you. And if or when we decide that this is worth taking out of the room, how about we make that decision together?”

 

Sam smiled at him and nodded against his hand. “Okay,” she agreed softly. 

 

“C’mere.”

 

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and drew her closer to him, pressing their bodies together from shoulder to toe in an embrace as intimate as a kiss. He tucked his face into the juncture where her shoulder and neck met and pressed a kiss to her pulse. 

 

She pulled away reluctantly, hands dragging against his back and sides as if to prolong their contact for just a few moments more. “I should go,” she said softly, stepping away. 

 

“Need me to make it an order?” he teased. She flushed and rolled her eyes, making a move towards the door. 

 

“I think I can handle this one, sir.” She paused, the door partially ajar. “When will we know when we can—“

 

“We’ll know, Sam.”

 

It was said with confidence and assurance and she grinned and nodded at him. 

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

He watched her disappear down the twisting sidewalk and into her car, headlights fading into the inky darkness of the night. Jack felt that he had learned something new about Sam and about _them_ , another layer and dynamic to their relationship had been revealed. 

 

And more than anything, he learned two things. One: that there was hope for him and Sam in the future, no matter how hopeless the situation sometimes felt. And two: that while Daniel needed coffee, Teal’c needed companionship, and Sam needed orders and structure, he, Jack, needed Sam.

 

Closing his front door, Jack grinned to himself, licking his lips and catching the last taste of her that lingered on his lips. 

 

A clichéd ending for a clichéd day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
